


Sweet Nothings

by Quixotic



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sans-Sgrub AU, powerswap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-12
Updated: 2011-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-24 13:40:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/264085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quixotic/pseuds/Quixotic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped in the throes of a particularly tempestuous "second cerebral awakening", Sollux is on the verge of losing his mind. But when Karkat's pity inspires him to take Sollux's psionic burden from him, he's stuck carrying a load he's unprepared to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A fill I've been doing over on good ol' Homesmut. The prompt was basically a Karkat/Sollux powerswap with some sexy psionic topping. I guess this is "mature" because eventually there will be boinking. But not until there's been a lot of feelings.

There was the rhythmic beat of wood against Karkat's palm as he tossed his sickle in the air and, repeatedly, caught it by the handle. It was no doubt one of the stupider games he had come up with during his stay at Aradia's hive, but it had occurred as a natural deterioration of him telling himself he was going to practice some strikes while he waited. Honestly, he'd given being productive an honest try.

But it felt too damn weird making an ass of himself in the kitchen like things were normal when he knew the condition Sollux was in.

Now he was sitting against the wall bordering his friend's borrowed respite block, watching Trolltube videos with an unimpressed scowl and continuing his fortuitous streak of not cutting his fingers off.

The sickle flew up.

He glanced at his task bar - still no replies from Aradia.

It came down.

He caught it with practiced grace, listening for any sign of disturbance in the next room. Nothing yet. Good.

Up.

He'd been alone on Sollux-watching duty for a day and a half now, and he was already tired. He literally could not fathom how Aradia had been doing this for so long - it was already a couple weeks into Sollux's second cerebral awakening, and he'd only been there helping for maybe a fifth of that.

Down.

The second cerebral awakening was the period in a psionic's growth where their their abilities "filled in" so to speak. It didn't happen to all of them, but it wasn't uncommon, and the higher level the psionic the worse it tended to be. Power surges, lack of control, and strange new twists on existing phenomenon were the typical symptoms. Just another one of the many ways a young troll could die before reaching maturity.

Aradia had gone through hers over half a perigee previous, and Sollux had been in charge of her care for most of its duration, resulting in all kinds of terrible stories. Afterwards, he had very earnestly proclaimed that he never wanted to see another "fucking god damn ghost" again.

Up.

Karkat had made the long trek down from the suburbs at Aradia's request, because apparently things were getting a bit too hot for her to handle alone. Him being left alone, though, had been something of an emergency decision.

Aradia's Trollian status switched to online.

Down.

He caught the sickle with a flick of his wrist, and set it down at his side. He was on that shit like acid wasps on a freshly dropped corpse.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling apocalypseArisen [AA] --

CG: HEY  
CG: ARE YOU DONE YET  
CG: YOU'RE COMING BACK SOON  
CG: RIGHT?  
AA: yes!  
AA: i mean i h0pe s0  
AA: n0t as s00n as id like th0ugh :(  
AA: this place is really c0nfusing  
AA: they 0nly just started the review t0day  
CG: OH  
CG: SHIT  
CG: IS THAT  
CG: I MEAN IS EVERYTHING...?  
AA: its fine!  
AA: its just b0ring  
AA: but i have n0thing t0 hide fr0m them :)  
AA: an0ther day 0r tw0 and the review will be d0ne and i can c0me h0me t0 check 0n y0u and s0llux  
AA: h0w is he  
CG: I'D SAY HE'S FINE BUT THAT IS HELLISHLY AND DOWNRIGHT OFFENSIVELY UNDERSTATING MATTERS.  
CG: THERE'S NOTHING FINE ABOUT THIS AT ALL.  
AA: karkat i kn0w it l00ks bad but y0uve g0t t0 h0ld 0n 0k  
AA: hell get thr0ugh it  
AA: and s0 will y0u  
CG: ...YEAH SURE  
CG: I GUESS  
CG: JUST GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE POST HASTE.  
CG: I'M KIND OF STARTING TO FREAK OUT OVER HERE.  
AA: i will as s00n as i can i pr0mise  
AA: im n0t really happy ab0ut leaving him there either  
AA: i  
AA: 0h crap  
AA: theyre calling 0n me i have t0 g0  
AA: g00d luck karkat and give s0llux a smile f0r me 0k :)

\-- apocalypseArisen [AA] has ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] --

CG: UNLIKELY

Karkat growled at his screen in frustration before pushing it aside. So a day or two more at least. Great. He was actually going to drive himself insane this way. Groaning in frustration, he leaned back against the wall, taking his sickle back in hand.

It wasn't that he resented having to look after Sollux, but honestly, the situation was starting to get to him. He wanted to do what he could for his friend, but watching the other troll go through this was approaching a real physical pain.

He slumped against the wall, tossing up the sickle one more time.

He'd had to bodily haul Sollux out of his recuperacoon that evening and dump him in the shower, and there was just some so unsettling about seeing his life long friend in that state of -

In the next room, Sollux screamed. Karkat looked up, orange eyes wide.

"Sollux- ?" he started.

The sickle, briefly forgotten, came down. The blade cut against his palm as it dropped.

"Fuck!" He did a full body flinch as the weapon rattled off of the floor, clutching his wrist and staring down at his hand in shock. The wound wasn't as deep as it could have been, but too-bright red blood was quickly welling up from beneath the protective grey skin.

Sollux screamed again.

" _Fuck!_ " Karkat scrambled to his feet, bundling his bleeding hand in a bit of excess sleeve. He'd have to patch himself up later. Duty called.

Moments later he was bursting through Sollux's door. He stood there for a moment, gaping.

He didn't like what he saw.

The block seemed to be filled with a source-less, ambient light. Sort of red, sort of blue, it flickered between hot and cold with a dizzying speed. Several piece of furniture were drifting in the air, several feet out of place of where they should have been.

Everything was goddamn floating. And Karkat knew who was responsible.

"Sollux?" he called, increasingly desperate. "Sollux, where-" And then he saw him.

He was crumpled up in the opposite corner, clutching his head, a low pitched whine resonating from the back of throat as he choked back another cry. Going through puberty had resulted in a lot of changes for Sollux, the most noticeable (besides the way he was currently thrashing his respite block) being a burst of height that left him many inches too tall as far as Karkat was concerned. At seven and a half sweeps, he was a ball of spindly limbs, still awkward and unsure in his developing body but only a breath away from adulthood.

Today he looked sick though, worn from days of pain and unrelenting mental stress, somehow faded despite the brightly coloured psionic glow that managed to fill most of the room. Karkat had seen him use his abilities many times in the past, but there was something different about it now. Something different about how it seemed out of sync with his body, no longer cooperating with its host so much as violently possessing him.

There had been one thing Aradia had warned him about before he'd come there. Sollux's situation was an especially delicate one, because of the particularly damaging nature of his ESP - and because his powers were fluctuating to levels of intensity she wasn't accustomed to seeing.

Whatever was happening inside of Sollux was dangerous and unpredictable. There was a chance, Karkat forced himself to admit as he crossed the threshold with a pounding vascular pump, that one of them would wind up dead because of it. Somehow, that knowledge didn't stop him.

"Sollux?" he called to him, making cautious progress across the room. "Sollux, listen to me - you have to stop."

Sollux's head jerked up to face him as if recognizing his presence for the first time, mismatched eyes opening, brow furrowed in pain and desperation.

"KK," he pleaded, yellow tears beading at the corners of his eyes. And the laws of gravity suddenly changed.

Half of the objects that had been floating abruptly slammed down to the floor, while the other half were inelegantly slammed into roof. Karkat was, unfortunately, one of the latter. His back hit the plaster. A lamp smashed nearby.

"Dont," Sollux said, begging now, eyes squeezing shut again as he curled in on himself. "Don't, don't, don't, don't-" He was radiant with psychic energy, red and blue swirls of light obscuring and distorting his image.

Meanwhile, Karkat was stuck to the ceiling.

"Shit," he breathed. He was no expert - despite being the lowest of the lowbloods as far as he knew, Karkat had never manifested any kind of psionic ability, something he had always found vaguely troubling despite the obvious risks involved - but Sollux looked like he was fighting a losing battle.

He couldn't watch this, he decided. He couldn't just let this happen.

"No, listen to me, you stupid fuck," he growled, pushing against the ceiling in an attempt to get closer. "I'm not letting you do this. I'm pulling you out of this goddamn psychic tailspin if I have to do it by hand! Sollux, look at me."

Sollux let out another anguished cry, head rocking back, fanged mouth opening to the ceiling. He was developing a nosebleed from the pressure, yellow blood streaking down his face. Karkat's fangs grit in his mouth, his hands clawing for some kind of purchase.

The psionic support was ripped away, leaving him to plummet back down to the floor. He caught himself, just barely, in a crouching position. The desk wasn't so lucky, one of its legs shattering out from beneath it.

"Look at me, Sollux!" he demanded again, though he'd only made it a step or two closer when he was hauled up off of the floor again. He hit the roof a bit more gracefully this time, bracing himself with his hands. The polarity of the room had changed again.

Up.

He kicked off of a dresser that had been hoisted up there with him, steadily pushing himself towards Sollux, when the direction of the kinetic force changed again. It was moving faster, increasingly sporadic and wild. The windows shattered.

Down.

The recuperacoon landed on its side, contents spilling out in a neon green slurry. Karkat scraped himself off of the floor again, eyes wide as his calls became louder - pleading.

" _Sollux!_ "

There was a thunderous crack as the force swirling around the psionic fractured the surface of the walls and floor around him. "I can't," Sollux kept crying. "I can't-"

This had just gone from brave to damn near suicidal. But Karkat had been warned about this kind of thing. There was only one place this would go without intervention.

"You can," Karkat said, left hanging mid air as the room was buffeted by yet another gale of psionic force. "And you fucking _will._ "

His feet met the floor one last time, and he charged - forgetting that it was probably hopeless - forgetting that this was most likely his one way ticket to becoming a mutant red smear on the wall. He ran to Sollux, collapsing down in front of him, making a desperate grab to touch him, to hold him. His bloodied hand, wound long since forgotten in the fray, found its way to Sollux's face, yellow blood and tears mingling with red and blurred into a fiery orange.

He could feel Sollux's power surging around him, like thousands of tiny clawed hands, brushing the surface of his body but never quite cutting. There was the quiet tear of fabric as their clothing wasn't quite as lucky.

"Don't go crazy on me, Sollux," Karkat said, pressing their foreheads together, voice soft but urgent. "Don't do this. Not yet. This isn't over."

And then, like a calm in the storm, Sollux opened up his eyes. They stared into each other as things broke around them, and for a moment, Karkat could see and feel every inch of his friend's pain. With a buzz of sensation and a sharp pain in the back of his mind, he willed it all away.

Like a thunderstorm stopped in its tracks, the chaos parted like dark clouds, and they were swallowed by a thick silence. Karkat's blood felt hot, like his veins were filled with a sudden electricity.

Eventually, the world came back to life.

"They're gone," Sollux whispered, staring at him with awestruck eyes.

Karkat moved his mouth to speak, but he couldn't hear his own words, a chorus of voices rising, unbidden, in the back of his thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2

"I can't hear them anymore," Sollux said, voice quiet and wondering. His hand reached up to hold Karkat's hand at his cheek. "KK, I can't...what did you do?"

Karkat didn't answer. He could hardly hear Sollux over the depthless noise - sourceless cries of fear and pain, each ending with an abrupt violence as another came to take its place. It was dizzying. Nauseating.

"KK...?" Sollux was starting to sound scared now. Karkat felt his grip on the other troll's body slacken, and was filled with a sudden, urgent sense of concern and apprehension. But it didn't fit inside his head right. It didn't feel like it belonged there.

He tried to breathe.

And then he was on the floor, Sollux leaning over him, shaking his shoulders and calling his name with increasing desperation. Karkat hadn't noticed the transition. He hardly remembered where he was.

Sollux was clutching his hand, streaks of red blood smeared across his palm, running down his arm. Karkat's eyes widened, fixating completely on the red, yellow and orange stain on Sollux's cheek.

Fuck. Oh fuck, he was bleeding. Sollux saw. He knew. He knew, he knew, he _knew_ -

Of course he knew, Karkat remembered distantly, the rising hysteria crumbling. He knew because he'd told him, so many perigee ago, his knees on the floor of his hive, legs given out under the weight of inevitability and despair.

"Karkat, wake up," Sollux was begging, somewhere else. Pity washed over him in waves.

"You should have told me sooner, you cocky asshole," Sollux had told him, arms wrapped, sheltering, around his shoulders. "I bet you think this makes you special, but I don't give half a luke warm shit."

"Come on," Sollux whispered, in the here and now, breath on his cheek. Karkat's eye's rolled back, his mind beginning to surface.

"What...what's happening...?" he rasped, trying to move. His movements were uncoordinated, his thoughts still reeling under the noise.

"Oh thank god," Sollux said, pulling back a little. "You are so lucky, I was two seconds from kicking your ass."

Karkat wanted to make a comment about the virtuosity of beating up on an unconscious guy, but the words wouldn't come together in his mind. Instead, he managed: "What did I...?"

"You passed out like a complete douchebag, is what," Sollux said. He still sounded tired and worn down, but the stress that had been tearing him apart was gone. He added, a little quieter, "And you...you touched me. And they left."

"The...the voices," Karkat said, as if remembering the concept for the first time. But it wasn't like Sollux hadn't tried to explain them a million times. "Sollux, they're in my...they're here. I can hear them." He found himself clutching at Sollux's shirt, like an anchor. "Fuck, is this what it's like...?"

Sollux stared at him, mismatched eyes wide and uncomprehending. This wasn't something that should have been possible.

"What do you mean?" he prompted. "That doesn't make any sense, KK-"

Karkat wanted to explain, but he was so fucking tired. His skull felt like it was full of hot lead. "Tired," he mumbled. "Gunna...lay down."

He wasn't sure if his message of 'I'm definitely about to pass out again' ever got through, but when he regained consciousness he was curled up on a resting slab, a warm, thin blanked draped over his small frame. He woke up with a groan, his lips dry and his mouth feeling like it was full of mud.

"Nnh?" he asked, hardly moving, a warm ache spreading up the back of his skull. Quiet, unfamiliar voices were the first to answer, though it didn't sound like they'd listened to his question. He flinched.

"Oh, hey," Sollux said, poking his head in from the next room. He seemed strangely alert - almost...perky? "You're...good. Okay, good, just relax KK, I'm got this covered."

He came into the room, which Karkat vaguely identified as the communal living space. He started putting his hand on Karkat's face - feeling his forehead and wiping some of the sweat from his cheek and temple. Karkat started to shift around, his knee jerk reaction to surprise physical contact always a negative one.

"Hands off, Captor," he rasped. "Now is not the time to cop a feel."

Sollux mostly ignored that statement, though he pulled away, quickly coming back with an opened water bottle. He put it to Karkat's mouth. "Okay, here, drink."

Karkat made a sleepy, displeased noise, but reluctantly brought up a hand to steady the bottle's neck as he tentatively started to drink. It was pleasantly cool, and he could feel it beginning to clear away some of the grit in his mouth. As he was doing that, though, there was a prickly pain in his palm. The wound had been freshly bandaged.

He suddenly remembered how he had ended up in this position. He stared at the wall, furrowing his brow.

"What just happened to us?" he mumbled.

Sollux frowned. "Well it didn't really...'just happen', anymore. You've been sleeping for over an hour." He looked away. "But...I don't know." There was a long pause, before he looked back to his friend. "Do you remember anything about...when it happened?"

Karkat hesitated for a long moment, then shrugged his shoulder. "You were freaking out and I wanted to make you calm the fuck down. So I got in close, and it was just like...I don't even know. It was just so...I thought you were going to fucking..." He couldn't even say it.

"Yeah, me too," Sollux said quietly. He hesitated again. "...Are they still there?"

Karkat paused to listen, a multitude of screamed and whispered words stabbing through his thoughts like a culling fork.

"...Yeah," he said, eventually, staring blurry-eyed at the wall.

Sollux thought about that for a while before continuing. "I can't...I can't use my powers. Anymore. Since it happened." He looked almost ashamed, as if it was an admission of weakness. He stared at the corner of the resting slab. "Maybe you have that part, too."

Karkat looked up at him, feeling kind of stunned by the possibility. Both that Sollux could be missing something that seemed to integral to his being, and that he could have somehow come into possession of it.

"That would be pretty fucked," was all he could muster.

"We need to find out," Sollux said, suddenly, still not looking at him.

"What, like right now?" Karkat pushed himself up on an arm. He was gradually starting to feel more centered. Or rather, he felt like he may be able to walk without hurling.

"Yeah." Sollux blinked. "Well, no, I mean...soon. We...don't know if this is going to fix itself, right? Maybe...it won't, for all we know." He sounded vaguely hopeful for a second, but then just looked disgusted at himself. "But it might get worse again. And if it does..."

If it did, Karkat would be at the wheel of a megaton battle cruiser of psionic power with absolutely zero clue how to pilot it. If the devastation in Sollux's respiteblock had been the result of a seasoned expert...

"Guess we should get on that shit," Karkat said, getting his to his feet.


End file.
